NY Times Article on Setting Life Goals

Alex Williams wrote a NY Times article titled Ten things to Do Before This Article Is Finished (Aug 26, 2007). It's a fascinating description of the growing phenomena of people writing down their life goals - a list of things they want to accomplish before they die. This is apparently becoming quite popular with a number of web sites devoted to collecting a summary of the most popular goals sent in by people (ex: www.43things.com )

People are often drawn to create a list of life goals because they feel unmotivated, lack a sense of accomplishment or direction, or just need more focus in their lives. Working through the list of goals gives more meaning to their lives, creates a greater sense of accomplishment, introduces them to new activities, and helps them take steps towards self-improvement.

One women described a fascinating exercise she undertook to make good on her vow to "develop persistence". She trained herself to pause at work every 15 minutes to record the activities she had just finished. The point, she said, is to eliminate distractions and time wasting activities. She says she has doubled her daily productive hours. I'm tempted to try that.

The article also observed the growing phenomena that "baby boomers are at a point in our life that this is the moment to stop and take stock". All this is really great as far as I'm concerned. But there seemed to be one important element missing - a discussion of how you chose what goals to set. Among the life goals given as examples in the article were: attain the perfect golf swing, see a dinosaur fossil,get a tattoo, and learn to surf. Those are all fun (except maybe for the tattoo one) and can add a sense of adventure to your life. But can't help but think that life should be more than just a series of personal adventures undertaken for the fun of it. Such adventures should be a part of life, but the main goals? That seems a little shallow to me.